In a landmark vote Friday, the United Nations General Assembly gave formal backing to a new global map projection that correctly depicts Africa’s actual geographic size, capping off a years-long advocacy campaign spearheaded by African nations and international geographic justice groups.
The non-binding resolution, put forward by Togo with unified support from the entire African Union bloc, passed with overwhelming global backing: 164 UN member states voted in favor of the measure, while only the United States cast a opposing vote. Six nations — Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Ukraine — chose to abstain from the vote.
The resolution calls on governments and multilateral institutions worldwide to phase out the centuries-old Mercator projection, a mapping standard that has dominated global cartography since the 16th century, in favor of the Equal Earth projection, a modern alternative that geographers and advocacy leaders confirm renders continental proportions with far greater geographic accuracy.
First developed in 2018, the Equal Earth projection accounts for the Earth’s natural curvature to display all landmasses in their true relative sizes. By contrast, the Mercator projection, originally created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator to aid 16th-century European maritime navigators, systematically distorts continental sizes: it inflates the apparent area of polar-adjacent landmasses including North America and Greenland, while drastically shrinking the size of equatorial regions including Africa and South America. One striking example of this distortion sees the Mercator projection depict Greenland as roughly the same size as Africa; in reality, Africa is 14 times larger than the Arctic island.
UN officials emphasized that the resolution does not implement an outright ban on the Mercator projection, nor does it force any entity to adopt the Equal Earth model. Instead, it acts as a formal global endorsement encouraging voluntary adoption of the more accurate projection for general use, from education to public policy and digital mapping.
Speaking ahead of the vote, Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey framed the shift as more than a technical cartographic adjustment. “Maps shape our understanding of the world,” Dussey told the assembly. “They guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions.”
Advocacy groups that led the multi-year campaign to secure UN backing welcomed the resolution as a critical step toward correcting long-standing geographic bias. Africa No Filter, one of the leading organizations behind the push, noted in a statement that the group now aims to see the accurate projection integrated into everyday global systems: “We want to see accurate maps in schools, textbooks, newsrooms, businesses and on the digital platforms billions of people use every day.”
International leaders also celebrated the vote as a small but meaningful step toward greater geographic and historical accuracy. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot wrote on social platform X following the vote: “Changing the map obviously doesn’t change the world. But correcting a representation that distorts it is already an act of truth.”
Geographers have long backed the shift away from general use of the Mercator projection, noting that its only practical, valid application remains the original purpose for which it was designed: maritime navigation. Mark Monmonier, a veteran geography professor at Syracuse University, summed up the widespread academic consensus in comments on the resolution: “Outside of that very narrow navigation application, there is no point in using it.”